Was thinking something similar wrt the head-on photo. The wheel/tyre appears to be sitting slightly off to the drive side of the cycle. Appreciate this may be a photographic effect or due to perspective. If you have a wheel dishing gauge you might wish to check the front wheel. If not, you could simply try reversing it in the fork to see how it sits.

Did not recognise the model of this Zeus headset. Am well familiar with the Gran Sport and the 2000 models but had not seen this one before. Could it perhaps be a New Racer?

Thanks for all the new pictures.

So, this sage continues. The 26.4 seatpost seems too large. So I made a shim for now from a aluminum can and put the smaller post back on.

Then I noticed just how much room there was around the 700 x 23 tires. Not sure why I didn't notice that before. I put my one remaining Continental GP4000s II 700 x 28 on the back wheel and it fit with a done of room to go. It's measuring 29.27mm on the Open Pro rim at 100 psi. I'll actually run it at 80 psi though. But there's easily room to go much larger on this and still clear the brakes, seat tube, chainstays and the chainstay bridge. I bet this frame was designed for 27" wheels originally.

A quick snap of the space on the rear now with the 700 x 28 on it. Heck, this alone is reason enough to keep it.

The images I could find of the New Racer Headset both had "BSC" on them next to the Zeus. Mine doesn't. It looks similiar to the "Criterium" picture I saw.

On the tire saga. I noticed this morning how heavy the original tire I took off the rear felt. Especially considering he had a tire liner in there. So I swapped out the front for a GP4000s 700 x 23 I had hanging in the garage. I then weighed the bike and lost 9 full ozs off the one area it probably matters. Gonna take it back out this morning to see how it feel with the lighter and better rubber on it.

I'm tempted to put on the pair of Challange Bianca Strada 700 x 30 tires I have. Should be plenty of room. They were just a bear to mount on one of my other bikes and I worry about being able to fix a flat on the road with them.

Well, this bike will move. Did a 20 miler on it today using my base route that I ride all the time. Hit the 9 mile mark at a leisurely 18 mph avg and then cranked it up. Held it above 20 mph for most of the remainder of the ride to finish at a 19.5 mph overall average. Not bad for an old mid 80s steel ride being driven my a 51 year old man with legs tired from riding 120 miles the past two days. The bike felt pretty comfortable on the new rubber. But my fit isn't perfect on it yet. I felt a bit too deep while in the drops. And the saddle isn't right for me. The hips didn't feel free and opened up while in the drops either. The bike continued to shift just fine though. I think I missed one shift the whole ride.

The handling felt a bit odd though. This route has several 90 degree turns I take at speed and this bike seemed to resist turning if that makes sense. I did multiple passes over the same route the past two days on my Giordana XL Super and this orbea felt sluggish in the turns compared to it.

To continue the saga....

I went ahead and put on my biggest tires. A set of Challange Bianca Strada in 700 x 30. On these old school Open Pro Rims they measure at 30.65 at 85 psi on the rear. I didn't measure the front which is at 75 psi and has even more room.

Some pics of how much space there is on the rear end with this large tire.





This was actual shot at an angle, there's even more room than how it appears in the image.



Finally, a shot of the bike with these tires on it. Oh and I just got in another set of Look pedals so I can now ride this clipped in like I usually do on all my bikes. Should turn even better times now.

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Given those clearances it makes one wonder if bicycle could have been an export model made for 27" wheels. Sounds a bit odd for this late.

Wonder if it is conceivable it could have been intended for path/cowtrailing application so owner could run large cross section tyres. Is shell height in the normal range for a road machine or is it a bit on the high side?

What are the brake centers like with the 700's mounted?

Thank you for the information regarding the headset!

And thank you for the update.

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Yeah, I'm wondering about the 27" thing myself. The brake pads are pretty much at the bottom of the brake arms. They look like they'd reach 27" rims by moving them up on the arms.

I finally sent an email out to Orbea in Spain to see if I can get more info. Used an online translator so hopefully what I sent makes sense to them.

I'm hoping to get this out tomorrow with the new tires to see how they feel. It'll be good to get a trip in on it while properly clipped in and with my feet positioned correctly.

Can't speak for what's normal since I don't really know. So I compared it against 4 of my other road bikes. The Orbea is at 10 7/8th" at the center of the BB. The XL Super, 560 Pro Series, Campione, and Prologue all measured at around 10 1/2" at the center of the BB, so it is a bit higher.

Took this bike out today for the first time since putting on the 700 x 30c tires. I did 3 back to back laps of the same 25 mile route on three of my 80s bikes, this Orbea, the Schwinn Prologue, and the Trek 560 Pro Series. First was the Schwinn and I did the route at an average pace of 19 mph even. Then I did it on this Orbea. And with these much bigger tires I still pulled out a 19 mph avg pace and was actually 4 seconds faster despite not seeming to work as hard. It was really comfortable with these tires inflated at 70 psi front and 80 psi rear. This bike is stable and all but does resist turning in at speed. Although if I entered a curve in the drops and did react better.

I was really happy at how well it carried speed with these bike tires. Of course this route is really rough, potholed and cracked chipseal. So maybe this bike was more efficient at handling all the road imperfections?

Oh and the Trek was a distant 3rd at an 18.3 mph avg. Some of that was comfort as the fit on this one is not right yet.

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Thanks very much for this update.

Sounds like you have selected for yourself a winner!

Congratulations.

Have you had any additional communication with manufacturer?

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So far, the Spain office has not responded.

Totally forgot to update this for future folks searching on these.

The home office did respond but were unable to provide any specific information on my bike. They did send me a link which give access to a treasure trove of Basso Catalogs including a couple of 1980s ones. The Cabestany is in a couple of them but not my specific year it appears. So at least I know what year it isn't, LOL!

In one catalog it's listed as Vitus 888 and then in another its Vitus 788, so still no real answer on that, not that it really matters.

Here's the catalog link:

Orbea Downloads

Well, when I looked through the old catalogs even the early 80s one listed this model as having 700c wheels not 27"s so it was built with all this clearance.

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Hello James,

In this image it appears there be a bit of bar sag/droop taking place, greater on the drive side than the offside.



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There is presently a Cabestany listed on milanuncios -



https://www.milanuncios.com/biciclet...-237941326.htm

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MoBic chainsets appear they may have the same 120mm BCD as Zeus. Wonder if they may be some manner of successor entity to Arregui...





This one-key release set is paired with some Olimpic pedals:



Wonder what the letter E stands for. Eibar or something else...

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Still running around on this old beast and it's been through a couple of iterations. Spent more time today working on a Miyata 312 but while digging into my stash for parts for it I found some two sided MB type pedals I forgot I had. Then later I found some 700 x 32 Cyclocross tires. So now the Orbea has been transformed into an even more capable gravel type bike. Hard to fathom one of these was racing in the grand tours of the mid 80's with all the tire clearance it has. Oh and I also found some new hoods for this and then promptly misplaced them before getting to the garage with them I still don't know what the heck I did with them after I grabbed them out of the parts cabinet. Dang ol' brain!

Anyway a pic of the bike as I set it up today and a couple showing the clearance..


Today's setup, test coming soon.

Rear clearance, plenty around the chainstays too.

Front is good too.

Great pics and back story. Thanks for the update and the knobbies look fun!

Still messing with this one. Keep saying I need to just sell it and free up room and then I go and change it up some more. This morning I swapped out the hard brake pads for some decent Shimano ones. I think good calipers are next. Then I got ride of that gawd awful saddle and put back on the one it came with. I also put on the cheap repo hoods I got from France the other day. Oh and swapped the bottle cage. Thinking about testing this out proper after I get a first ride in on the Duell.

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum. I'm from Spain and I saw this post about the Orbea Cabestany, and I have to tell you that this isn't the bike Perico Delgado and Cabestany raced in 1985. It's a cheap, mass-produced replica with very basic components. The original was a real gem, with Campagnolo and Columbus components among its parts.

https://pedrodelgado.com/la-perico/la-perico-2015

Here you can see the Orbea bicycle he raced with in 1985

Yep, even if you look closely at the bike Pedro was on in the original GCN video I linked you can see it's different. My old bike appeared to match what GCN had but not Pedro's.

It was a fun ride though but off in so many ways. I think GCN should reshoot the video with Pedro's actual bike so we can see what happens!

Luz Ardiden 1986

I upload the photo of my bike, an Orbea Cabestany with Vitus 888 frame from 1985.
Wheels brakes Weinmann, Saddle Soffatti, Berelli handlebar, Mobic, Simplex derailleaur

The frame features on James bike are very basic [lugs] and has bolt on brakes[irrespective of what original parts were] when the Orbea race bikes of the team were Allen key brakes also slightly off topic but I wonder if this model [the top tube stickers seem original] was a Cabestany tribute model ,Orbea was/is a basque company and Cabestany was a Basque rider and celebrated as such ,locally this would of sold better locally MUCH better than a Delgado version